Glace Bay homeowner recalls encounter with man ticketed twice for failing to self-isolate

Homeowner says stranger was slumped over on his doorstep and appeared intoxicated

Erin Pottie · CBC News · 

A Cape Breton man says he hopes a stranger who showed up at his door last week is following self-isolation requirements after being ticketed twice in two days for flouting Public Health rules.

Richard Lewis was making supper last Thursday at his home in Glace Bay when he heard someone pounding at his door.

A man who appeared intoxicated was slumped over on Lewis’s step and appeared to be in medical distress.

“I was scared someone was going to die on my doorstep and I couldn’t help them,” said Lewis, who called 911.

He said police showed up within minutes and arrested the man.

Lewis then learned the 38-year-old man had been ticketed a day earlier for failing to isolate under the Health Protection Act.

• Glace Bay man arrested after failing to self-isolate — twice

“I was thinking my kids are going to end up getting sick,” said Lewis. “I grabbed the bottle of Clorox spray and started spraying everything down.”

The man who showed up on Lewis’s doorstep faces more than $11,000 in fines for twice failing to self-isolate.

Disturbance at business, hospital

Police allege the man was involved in an incident last Wednesday at a Sydney business that subsequently had to be closed for cleaning. It’s also alleged he caused damage at the regional hospital the same day after being taken there in distress.

The man was due in court Monday to face three charges of mischief and three of causing a disturbance.

Lewis said he feels someone should have made sure the man was at home after he first failed to self-isolate.

Wayne MacKay, a retired law professor at Dalhousie University, said enforcing the law and Public Health rules during the pandemic is a bit of a balancing act.

“It may be a situation where [police] may be dealing with an offender who doesn’t fully recognize the consequences — not just the financial consequences, but the damage and threat to others of disrupting businesses or hospitals and those kinds of things,” MacKay said.

“I feel for the police and I think they have a very difficult job in balancing enforcement in a difficult time with COVID on top of everything else.”